Latter patter

...when it was in fact a verb, the digital act of baiting making you one who TROLLs.

"Troll" as in "humorously wind people up online" is a newer sense, but one that's not at all far from the word's etymological origins in the Old French "troller", to quest without purpose. It's had diverse meanings since then; here are some from Oxford, Collins and Chambers:

to sing in a full, rolling voiceto turn over in one's mind; to revolve, ponder, contemplateto pass around the tableto move (the tongue) volubly(homosexual slang) to stroll around looking for sexual partners

Of the previous senses, the one that's closest to what the Telegraph clue is looking for is probably the angling term "to draw a line through the water", because online trolling is a little like trawling - saying something stupid and seeing who bites. Sadly, this young and useful piece of language may end up in the "obsolete" pile alongside "to move the tongue volubly" as newspapers and TV have begun using the same word to describe a very different online activity: a kind of bullying that's best summarised as "sending hate mail to Olympic swimmers and/or Richard Bacon".

The "bullying" meaning evokes the other, nounal, monstery sense of troll - an etymologically distinct word via the Danish "trold" - and its likely victory seems a linguistic pity as there's no other word for the kind of wind-up "trolling" originally described. As James Ball points out, while the hate-mail kind is unambiguously negative, there was a respectable anarchy about old-school trolling, which when done well could prick pomposities and actually keep online debate on track.

Watching a good troll can make you feel like Frieda talking about the messengers of Klamm in Kafka's The Castle:

In anyone else their behaviour would seem stupid and offensive, but in them it isn't. I watch their stupid tricks with respect and admiration.

And their stupid tricks can cause the subject of this week's cluing competition. Reader, how would you clue FLAME WAR?

Grammar's cool...

...and so is punctuation. In a forthcoming entry in our For Beginners series, we'll look at how punctuation marks can be clued or used misleadingly. There's no funny business in this clue from Wednesday's Times...

3d Like incorrect shop signs, perhaps, Istoodchanging (13)

...although it raises a smile at the idea of the busybody anonymous setter leaning across the greengages to scrawl on an clumsily APOSTROPHISED piece of Day-Glo card.

Cluing competition

There were some audacious spoonerisms including JollySwagman's "flan moo" and Thomas99's "Twelfth Greek tart" (flan mu) and yungylek got bonus points for including the previous week's phrase in "Oddly, melon farmer's first two turn rotten, giving bloke sickness".

The awful phrase lent itself to some awesome acrostics: Insidian's "The first to make a needless fuss levies unconvincing sickie", natjim's "My alarming new feeling - listless, unwell to begin with, exaggerated complaint", Pamphletbomb's "Major ailment? Not flipping likely! Unless, for starters, it makes him snivel" and most of all jonemm's "Primarily masculine ailment (nurses feel largely unsympathetic)".

The runners-up are CasusPacis's compound anagram "Fraudulent malady a tad rudely dismissed?" and thisismycreed's misdirecting "A cold flan prepared to fill out empty menu" and the winner is the bold libertarian cluing of andyknott's "Complaint whereby many lack any effin' backbone?" That's cheeky in a lot of ways. Kudos to Andy - please leave this week's entries and your pick of the broadsheet cryptics below.